Counting Olympic Medals: Golds, Totals and the Eras Behind Them

Few statistics in sport are quoted as confidently as Olympic medal counts, and few are as easy to misread. Whether an athlete is called the greatest Olympian depends on whether you count gold medals or all medals, on the era in which they competed, and on how many events their sport offered. This guide sets out the main factors and explains why our gold medal and total medal rankings are separate lists.

Gold count or total count?

There are two common ways to count. The first is by gold medals, which treats a gold as the only meaningful result. The second is by total medals, which adds golds, silvers and bronzes. They answer different questions: the gold count measures how often an athlete won, and the total count measures how often an athlete reached the podium.

The difference can change the ordering. In the all-time total medal list, Michael Phelps is first with 28 medals, 23 of them gold. Soviet gymnast Larisa Latynina is next with 18 medals, 9 of them gold, and remained the record holder for total medals for nearly half a century until Phelps passed her in 2012. Athletes with many silvers and bronzes, particularly in gymnastics and shooting, where programmes include numerous events and finals, rank higher on the total list than on the gold list. Most other fans and national bodies have their own preference, which is why we publish both.

How the Olympic programme has grown

The number of events at the Games has increased greatly. The 1896 Athens Games included 43 events. The 1960 Rome Games had about 150, and recent Summer Games have had more than 300. More events mean more opportunities to win medals, and in some sports, particularly swimming, athletes can enter several events across strokes and distances, plus relays. A swimmer today can win more medals at a single Games than an athlete in the 1920s could in almost any sport.

That does not make Phelps's record less remarkable. He won at four consecutive Games, and he did so across a range of events that required different skills. Still, it shows why comparing an athlete from the early twentieth century, who may have had a limited choice of events, with a modern swimmer or gymnast requires care. Our article on the most decorated Olympic swimmers discusses this directly.

Team events and relays

Medals from team events count toward an athlete's personal total even if the athlete contributed in the heats and not the final. In relays, swimmers who swim only in the preliminary rounds receive medals if their team goes on to medal, as long as the rules of the event allow it. This is a convention, and it means a few medals on the lists come from a lesser role. It also means that annulments affect individuals through their teams, as with the 2008 men's 4x100 m relay, where one team member's later sanction cost the whole team its gold and reduced Usain Bolt's total of golds from nine to eight. See doping and the record book.

Medals in different formats

• Summer and Winter Games. The two Games are counted separately in some lists and combined in others. Our rankings state which they cover.
• Intercalated and discontinued events. Early Games included events that no longer exist, such as tug of war and standing jumps. Medals in those events are counted by the IOC in its official database, and they matter for the oldest records.
• Art competitions and demonstration events. These are not counted as medals in the official tables.
• Medal tables for countries. The IOC does not publish an official ranking of nations. Rankings by golds first or by total medals are both used by the media, and the order can differ.

Changing national names

Another complication is that countries come and go. Medals won by athletes of the Soviet Union, East Germany, Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia and the Unified Team of 1992 are recorded under those names, and are not always added to the totals of the modern countries that succeeded them. When a ranking lists a country as a team affiliation, we use the name used at the time of the Games.

Retroactive changes

Olympic results are not final on the day of the ceremony. Re-analysis of stored samples, appeals to the Court of Arbitration for Sport and rule violations discovered later can all change who holds a medal. For this reason, a total from a few years ago may no longer match the current official figures, which is why all our Olympic rankings carry a verification date and a pointer to the IOC's own database.

Putting a number in context

1. Decide whether you are interested in wins (golds) or consistency at the top (total medals).
2. Consider how many events were available to the athlete, and how many an athlete could realistically enter.
3. Check whether team and relay medals are included.
4. Check the date, since medals can be reallocated after the fact.

For general advice on reading tables, see How to Read a Ranking Table.